{"id":476972,"date":"2026-02-13T08:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T08:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/476972\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T08:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T08:52:12","slug":"where-are-they-now-jake-kelly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/476972\/","title":{"rendered":"Where are they now? Jake Kelly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Crow and Bomber Jake Kelly would play a round of golf every now and then during his days off as a footballer.<\/p>\n

But Kelly, who lined up in 110 AFL games for Adelaide – including the 2017 Grand Final – never imagined it would lead to him being involved in the sport post-footy.<\/p>\n

Fast forward 17 months since Kelly retired, and he is working for LIV Golf as an Account Manager.<\/p>\n

Based in London, the 31-year-old returned to South Australia this week, with the golf tournament teeing off at Adelaide\u2019s Grange Golf Club.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a very keen golfer, but not a very good one,\u201d Kelly told AFC Media.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I am incredibly lucky to have a job like I have as my first job really outside of football, I am incredibly grateful for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be able to travel the world going to golf tournaments is fantastic.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy role is with strategic partnerships and government relations, so essentially I look after the Government contracts and contacts, so essentially it\u2019s partnerships.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 168-gamer\u2019s retirement from the AFL at the end of 2024 at the age of 29 may have come as a shock to some, but Kelly conceded he had lost the love of the game.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He was also keen to follow his partner overseas.<\/p>\n

Despite moving into a career within sport, it wasn\u2019t what Kelly, who is the son of Collingwood premiership defender and ex-Norwood player Craig Kelly, originally had his eyes on post-AFL.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt very fulfilled in what I had done (in footy), and secondly to that, I was always really keen and always had one eye on the next phase of my life,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was probably more excited about it because I guess there was a slow increase in my lack of enjoyment in the game, and that sort of crept up on me – that I wasn\u2019t enjoying getting better as much as I once had.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy partner was going overseas\u2026 (and) when I sat back and assessed it, I really couldn\u2019t justify doing something that I didn\u2019t want to do just for financial benefit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was going to go down the financial wealth-management path, private wealth path, banking path, but I quickly realised it wasn\u2019t for me and then I decided to move to London and from that, I gravitated to sport – it was probably the area I knew best and an area where I thought I\u2019d be able to get employment.\u201d<\/p>\n

To mark his return to SA, Kelly caught up with Crows players including close friend Reilly O\u2019Brien, Mitch Hinge, Luke Pedlar and Nick Murray.<\/p>\n

He said it was great to reconnect with former teammates and praised the Club for its welcoming culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really good to see them and it definitely feels like coming back full circle here,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am so grateful that I\u2019ve got a city like Adelaide that is essentially a second home to me\u2026 it\u2019s such a special place to me and my partner and I will never forget the people who helped me here.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be able to come to the Club and be welcomed that\u2019s something the Crows do really well – there\u2019s such great people down there and to let me come in – Adam Kelly is so open with his time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just really special – a club that allows past players to do that and I am so grateful that I have such a great relationship with them and feel comfortable doing that. I am currently staying with ROB, he\u2019s one of my best mates, but I am still so close with so many of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly\u2019s AFL career, meanwhile, spanned across nine years – six with the Crows and three at Essendon.<\/p>\n

He joined Adelaide through the 2014 rookie draft and made his debut in round three against Melbourne in 2015.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very excited (to get drafted)\u2026 but it was tough the first few years trying to find my feet and become established in the team,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I did that, though, I genuinely fell in love with it and I had such an amazing time here, particularly the last five years. I look back on that with such great memories.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I also look back on the first few years of my time at Adelaide as being hard, but being something that challenged me and I am definitely better for it now having done that, it\u2019s taught me a lot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t thank the Club enough for what they did for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

After six seasons with the Crows, Kelly signed with Essendon as a free agent at the end of the 2021 season, citing home sickness as the catalyst for joining the Bombers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was largely driven by a desire to get back to Melbourne and to my family, there wasn\u2019t anything beyond that,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved the people and I loved living here, but it got to a point where I really wanted to be back with Mum and Dad and play football in Melbourne for a few years.<\/p>\n

\u201cEssendon came up as an opportunity and it\u2019s a great Club and I loved my time there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really fulfilled in Adelaide, I had created great memories and I thought I was leaving the Club at a good time where I had really strong relationships and what\u2019s come out of it is that I can go back to the Club and it feels like home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite not winning a flag, Kelly has positive memories of his football career and reflects on it with joy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember laughing, I remember creating great relationships and the quality of people there,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re relationships that I\u2019ll have for the rest of my life, and I\u2019m super grateful for that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what I take out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Crow and Bomber Jake Kelly would play a round of golf every now and then during his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-476972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}